James Kelman's story, The Burn, has been interpreted as a universal depiction of the plight of the working class in an oppressive society. Additionally, critics have highlighted the stylistic achievement of Kelman's writing; his ability to use language to bring out a psychological and emotional state of being in a fraction of an individual's life; but there is another perspective that may have been an unintended result of his genius as a writer. His unnamed character gives us an additional lens to view his journey. And, by following the anonymous character through his journey to an interview, we can see the role he plays in the social construct, oppressive as it is, that leads him to a hopelessly inevitable dead end. Social constructs can have a debilitating influence on an individual. the life of the individual. The propaganda that the construct spreads by placing the individual in a hierarchical system is sometimes met with opposition and other times is taken as fact. When encountered with opposition, the construct can motivate a person to aspire to become more than the construct would allow. And, on occasions when the construct is believed, it is used as confirmation of a self-denigrating idea. The negative effect is that it creates permanence where a potentially temporary condition exists. James Kelman's story posits that although social constructs are created to keep a group in its place, it is belief in the construct that perpetuates the cycle of oppression, propagates the lie, and brings it to reality. Kelman's character is a slave to external forces. It pushes him in a direction he doesn't want to go. There are choices. He sees them. But he chooses the least desirable, as noted: “He glanced back across the broad expanse of w…half of the paper…permanent state of illusion” (43). Kelman's character lives there and rationalizes why he is there, pointing to the external forces that surround him, that imprison him, that he should free himself from but, "he had no choice" but to stay in the place where the construct social has placed it and "be alone." In conclusion, James Kelman's unnamed character is led down a path that is an allegory of his life and the end of his life. The forest, the stream, the obstacles and the shadows of the characters he encounters along the way show the social construct that led him to his inner turmoil and, subsequently, to his prophetic conclusion. And, through the narrator's announcement of the characters' inevitable end, Kelman shows that although throughout the story he highlights the universality of the condition of "every man", he superimposes the individuality of the end.